Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1887-05-20


what your temptations are. The world will
only scott at you. What then must a man
dos When the waves strike him with terrific
dash shall he have nothing to hold on to- In
this contest with "the world, the flesh, and
the devil, shall man have no help, no coun.
sels
Our text intimates something different. In
those eyes that wept with the Bethany sisters
l see shining hope In that voice which
spake until the grave broke and the widow of
Main had back her lost son, and the sea slept,
and sorrow stupendous woke up in the arms
OF rapture-in that voice hear the command
ana the promise: Cast thy burden
on the Lord, and He will sustain thee Why
should you carry your burdens any longerl
Oh, you weary soul, Christ been in this
conflict. He says: my gra o shall be suffi-
cent for you. You snail not be tempted
above that you are are able to he lrn There
fore, with all your temptations, GO as these
disciples did, and tell Jesus
Again: l commend the behavior of the
disciples to all those who are abused and
sandered and prosecuted. When Herod put
John TO death, the disciples knew that their
own heads were not safe. And do you know
that every John has a Herod! There are
persons in life who do no5 wish you very
well. Your misfortunes are honeycombs to
them Through their teeth they hiss at
you, misnterpret your motives, and would be
glad to see you upset. No man gets through
life without having pummei!ing Some SIAN
DER comes after you, horned and tusked and
hoofed, 10 gore and trample you; and what
are You to doi tell you plainly that all who
serve Christ must suffer persecution. 1t is
the worst sign i'll the world for you to be able
to say; II haven't an enemy in the world"
A woe is pronounced in the Bible against the
one of whom everybody speaks we'll If you
are at peace with all the world, and every
body likes you and approves your work, it is
because you are an idler in the Lords vine
yard, and are not doing your duty
All those who have served Christ, however
eminent, have been maltreated at some stage
of their experience You know it was SO in
the time of George Whitefeld, when he stood
and invited men into the kingdom of God.
What did the learned Dr. johnson say Of
him! He pronounced him miserable mounte-
bank How was it when Robert Hall stood
and spoke as scarcely any uninspired man
ever did speak of the glories of Heaven9
and as he stood Sabbath after Sabbath
preaching on these themes his face kindled
with the glory. John Foster, Christian
man, said of this man. "Robert Hall is only
acting, and the smile on his face is a refec-
ton of his own vanity John Wesley turned
all England upside down with Christian re-
FORM and yet the punsters were after him,
and the meanest jokes in England were per-
petrated about John Wesley. What is true
of the pulpit is true of the pew; it is true of
the street, it is true of the shop and the store.
All who will live godly in Christ Jesus must
suffer persecution.
And set it down as the very worst sign in
all your Christian experience if you are, any
of you, at peace with all the world. The re-
ligion of Christ is war. 1t is a challenge 10
1.-THE world, the flesh and the devil" and If
you will buckle on the whole armor of God
you will find great host disputing your path
between this and heaven. But what are yol
to do when you are assaulted and slandcred
and abused, as l suppose nearly all of you
have been in your life Go out and huntup
the sanderer! Oh, no. silly man! While you
are explaining away a falsehood in one place,
fifty people will just have heard of it in other
places.
| counsel you to another course. While
you are not to omit any opportunity of set
ting yourselves right, | want to tell you this
morning of one who had the hardest things
said about Him, whose sobrety was disputed,
whose mission was secuted whose compan
ionship was denounced, who was pursued as
babe and spit upon as a man, who was
howled at after He was dead J will have
you go unto Him with your bruised seal, in
somc humble, child prayer, saying: ~ see
Thy wounds Of head, wounds of
feet, wounds of heart. Now, look at my
wounds, and see what | have suffered, and
through what battles | am going; and en-
treat Thee, by those wounds of Thine sym
pathize with ME And he will sympathze,
and He will help. Go and tell Jesus
Again: | commend the behavior of the
disciples to all who may have been bereaved
How many in garb of mourning! IF You could
stand at this point where | am standing and
look off upon this audience, how many signals
of sorrow you would behold God has His
own way of taking apart family. We must
get out of the way for coming generations.
We must get off the stage that others may
IN md fS,.f 30
procession reaching down all the time into
the valley of shadows
This emigration from time into eternity is
so vast an enterprise, that we cannot under
stand it. Every hour we hear the clang of
the sepulchral gate. The sod must be broken.
The ground must be ploughed for resurrec-
ton harvest Eternity must be peopled.
The dust must press our eyelids. cit is ap-
pointed unto all men once to die" This emf
grafton from time into eternity keeps three
fourths of the families of the earth in desola-
ton. The air is rent with farewes, and the
black tasselled vehicles of death rumble
through every street.
The body of the child that was folded so
closely to the mothers heart is put away in
the cold and the darkness. The laughter
freezes to the girls lip, and the rose scatters.
The boy in the harvest field of Shunam says
my head my head ~ and they carry him
home to die OF the lap of his mother Widow
hood stands with tragedies of woe struck into
the pallor of the cheek. Orphanage cries in
vain for father and mother. Oh, the grave
is cruel With teeth of stone, it clutches for
its prey. Between the closing gates of the
sepulchre, our hearts are mangled and
crushed. Is there any earthly solace
None. We come to the obsequies,
we sit with the grief-stricken, we talk pa
thetically to their soul; but soon the obseqUies
have passed the carriages have left us at the
a ri In cfaT rnlf for {p,,r Il
are gone, and the heart sits in da7olation
listening for the little feet that will never
again patter through the hall, or looking for
the entrance of those who will never come
Administering into the darkness ever and
anon coming across some book or garment, or
little shoe or picture, that arouses former as
ISOLATION, almost killing the heart
Long days and nights of suffering that wear
out the spirit, and expunge the bright lines of
| life and give haggardness to the face and
| draw the flesh tight down over the cheek bone,
and draw dark lines under the sunken eye
and the hand is tremulous, and the voice is
husky and uncertain, and the grief is wear.
| ing, grinding, accommodating, exhaustng
Now, what are such to dog Are they merely
| to look up into bsazen and IMPLYING heaven?
| Are they to walk blasted heath unfed of
| stream, unsheltered by overarching tree?
| Has God turned us out on the barren common
to dief Oh, mol no! moi He has not He
| comes with sympathy and kindness and love.
| He understands all our grief He sees the
height, and the depth, and the length, and
the breadth of it, He is the only one that
can fully sympathize. Go and tell Jesus.
Sometimes when we have trouble we go to
our friends and we explain it, and they
try, to sympathize; but they do not
understand it. They cannot understand it.
but Christ sees all over it, and all through it,
lie not only counts the tears and records the
! groans, but before the tears started, before